
Police search for suspect who fatally attacked couple in Arkansas' Devil's Den State Park
Clinton David Brink, 43, and Cristen Amanda Brink, 41, were found dead Saturday at Devil's Den State Park in Washington County in a suspected homicide, Arkansas State Police said.
Their daughters, who are 7 and 9, were not hurt and are being cared for by family members.
Officials described the suspect as a white male wearing dark shorts, a dark ballcap, sunglasses and fingerless gloves. He was seen driving toward a park exit in a black, four-door sedan with a license plate partly covered by tape.
The car, possibly a Mazda, may have been traveling on State Highway 170 or State Highway 220 near the park in a rural, wooded area with limited cellphone service, police said.
Shea Lewis, secretary of the Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage and Tourism, said rangers had stepped up patrols at Devil's Den.
'Our hearts are with the victims' loved ones during this incredibly difficult time,' Lewis said in a statement Sunday. 'The safety of our visitors and staff is our highest priority, and we are working closely with Arkansas State Police and various law enforcement officials as the investigation continues.'
Investigators asked for potential witnesses to review their photos and videos from the park south of Fayetteville. There was no information about a possible motive.
Officials said the victims had recently moved to Prairie Grove, Arkansas, from another state. Their bodies were taken to the state crime lab, where the manner and cause of death will be determined.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Daily Mail
29 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
NCIS actor's rape trial reveals disturbing selfie he sent terrified woman after he 'choked her unconscious'
Accused rapist Gabriel Olds had 'painful' sex with a 'scared' virgin who he choked unconscious as she fought desperately to breathe during intercourse, a court heard. The disgraced actor later texted a photo of himself 'humping' a tree despite the woman's requests for him to cease contact. The 53-year-old is charged with multiple counts of rape, sodomy and committing other graphic sex crimes on five women between 2014 and 2023. He was arrested in August last year and pled not guilty. The NCIS star met Jane Doe #7 (JD7) at a 24 Hour Fitness gym in Hollywood, California, in June 2023 as she was exercising on a StairMaster machine. He began flirting with the 31-year-old who was 'intrigued to know him more' and highlighted that he was an actor and writer who associated with A-listers and had attended Yale. They exchanged phone numbers after Olds had been talking about himself - 'monologuing for a long time' - and she 'wanted to leave.' The bespectacled Los Angeles comedy theater manager, a former personal trainer and mental health worker, wore a cream long-sleeved casual shirt over a mauve dress during the proceedings, with her long blonde hair pulled back with a clip. She told prosecutor Yasmin Fardghassemi that she and Olds had their first date on June 24 at The Misfit Bar in Santa Monica where he greeted her with a 'lingering hug.' He 'pressured' her to have an alcoholic drink so she ordered a glass of red wine and drank half. Although she didn't typically drink alcohol, she was 'trying to be cool.' Being pressured by Olds, she said, was a 'common theme' in their relationship. During powerful pre-trial testimony in Department 82 at the Airport Courthouse on Thursday, the witness revealed she felt 'insecure' and had only one sexual partner before meeting the accused and was still a virgin at the time. She disclosed that she suffers from vaginismus, a condition that made sex painful. 'Physical touch was not something that I had really experienced,' she said. She had attended an all-girls school where she was told to 'stay away from boys.' During the bar date, the two shared about their family histories, their different personalities and 'attachment theories.' There followed a brief stroll in nearby Palisades Park, close to the pier, overlooking the Pacific Coast Highway and the ocean. They began making out and Olds pulled down her dress and bra and began 'digitally penetrating' her over her underwear which she described as 'very painful.' She headed home afterwards and told the court Olds' actions her had caused her to bleed in her private area. He asked to see her again and while exchanging 'playful' texts they planned a second date. He immediately began asking her to send sexy pictures of herself which she declined to do. JD2 told the court that at the time she had just had a bad break-up with a co-worker before meeting Olds and was 'definitely curious at this point.' During their second date on July 7, 2023, they had pizza at a restaurant and talked about the novel Olds was writing and the TV show Westworld, the dystopian science fiction Western drama. She told him that she had never had vaginal sex but he didn't believe her. The court previously heard from other Jane Does who were allegedly slapped, punched in the head and back, choked and demeaned verbally by Olds during violent sexual encounters. Prosecutor Fardghassemi asked JD7 if she had heard of the BDSM type of sex which is favored by Olds, to which she responded: 'I live in Hollywood, so yeah, it's around.' After the meal, the pair went back to Olds' home in the Hollywood Hills. They had foreplay on his bed where he gave the woman oral sex - despite her protests - and boasted: 'I'm really good at it.' Without seeking her permission, he then set up his iPhone to record the witness which made her 'uncomfortable.' He told the footage was 'just for me.' She told the court: 'I felt psychologically and physically frozen.' He began having sex with her using condom even though she didn't want to be penetrated. She sobbed as she told the court: 'I'm disappointed that I didn't stick up for myself. I didn't know this person. I didn't love them.' The sex was 'very painful' but she went along with it. 'I basically felt like a leper,' she said. 'I didn't want to seem incompetent.' Despite her showing signs of being uncomfortable, Olds continued with the sex and was 'pretty locked into what he was doing. It was very clear that I was in distress and he was still trying to have sex.' She described the encounter up to that point as a 'disaster.' But things turned far darker and menacing when he strangled her during intercourse without warning using both of his hands. 'He started to choke me out,' she said. 'I remember the pressure getting harder and harder and harder.' She attempted to pull his hands away from her neck to relieve the pressure but became deprived of oxygen 'and things started getting fuzzy.' Olds, though, did not release his grip on her neck. 'There was a point where I went dark,' added the witness. 'I blacked out at that point. I felt really effed up.' When she came to, she was 'afraid' and realized she was in a 'dangerous situation.' She was 'super, super emotional and crying.' She repeatedly told Olds 'I need to go' but the much larger, 6' 1' tall actor remained positioned on top of his 5' 5', 155 pound victim. He seemed to be 'playing dumb' and told her 'let's talk about it.' Attorney Fardghassemi asked if she had wanted to have further intercourse at the time with him in that moment she responded bluntly, 'hell f**king no.' From the bench, Judge Lauren Weis-Birnstein repeated the same phrase to the court for clarity. The woman, who felt 'afraid' and 'embarrassed,' was able to flee Olds' home. He contacted her via text the following day to, in his words, 'clear the air' and she agreed to meet, but in public for her safety. 'I wanted to know if this person actually liked me,' she told the court, and to know 'How did something like that happen?' She shared a few more dates with Olds. They sometimes made out - with him taking more cell phone videos of her - but there was no more intercourse, despite his requests. During one get together at his home she had a panic attack because she didn't feel safe with him and she left. On July 12, he texted that she made him 'swoon' but she stated she could not 'recover trust.' She asked him to delete the videos he had taken of her and on August 3, 2023 told him via text to stop contacting her. However, on February 14 the following year - Valentine's Day - he texted her photos of himself 'humping' a tree and wrote: 'The last one is like me when I was inside of you :)' When she was shown the image Judge on a the prosecutor's laptop, the judge remarked: 'I can't tell what he's doing to the tree.' In a text to Olds on February 18, 2024 JD7 said of him: 'I have a visceral reaction of fear.' She later looked up his name online which was when she discovered he had been arrested and then contacted the Los Angeles Police Department. The bachelor actor has also appeared on popular TV shows such as Law & Order, Charmed and Boardwalk Empire and portrayed televangelist Pat Robertson in the 2021 indie film The Eyes of Tammy Faye alongside Jessica Chastain and Andrew Garfield. On Friday, the judge determined that Olds would stand trial on 12 felony counts and kept his bail at $3.5 million. Det. Brent Hopkins, who headed up the police investigation, told the Daily Mail exclusively: 'This was a long, extremely emotional hearing where these survivors bravely shared their stories. 'We're thankful they and all the other witnesses had the strength to see it through. 'We keep finding new stories, so if there are others out there who have not yet had their say, we hope to give them a chance to speak, as well.' Olds is being held at Los Angeles County Sheriff's North County Correctional Facility. He could spend the rest of his life behind bars if convicted on all counts.


Daily Mail
29 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
As the true scale of the involvement of South Yorkshire Police officers in the Rotherham grooming gangs scandal is revealed, one victim - just 14 at the time - tells her horrific story
With its dirty net curtains, black plastic door and stench of stale air, Elizabeth Harper will never forget the flat in which she was held in Rotherham for ten long weeks in 2004. Nor will she forget the steady stream of male strangers who were allowed into the fetid bedroom to systematically rape and abuse her.


Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Ex-Trump prosecutor faces Office of Special Counsel investigation and given stern warning
The United States Office of Special Counsel appears set to give former federal prosecutor Jack Smith a taste of his own medicine, opening an investigation into his conduct. Smith resigned from his position in January after completing two criminal investigations into Donald Trump which he later said would've seen the president convicted of Conspiracy to Defraud the United States had he not won the election. Now, Smith faces an investigation into whether he was engaging in political activities during the investigation which would be a violation of the Hatch Act. 'I appreciate the Office of Special Counsel taking this seriously and launching an investigation into Jack Smith's conduct. No one is above the law,' wrote OSC Senior Counsel Charles Baldis in a letter obtained by The New York Post. The Daily Mail has reached out to the White House for comment. Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton - the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee - spurred the investigation by writing a letter to acting OSC Chairman Jamison Greer. 'Jack Smith's legal actions were nothing more than a tool for the Biden and Harris campaigns. This isn't just unethical, it is very likely illegal campaign activity from a public office,' he wrote. Cotton praised the decision to look into what Smith was doing in a statement. 'Jack Smith's actions were clearly driven to hurt President Trump's election, and Smith should be held fully accountable,' he said. Following his resignation, Smith stood by his decision to bring charges against Trump and insisted he would have been convicted of Conspiracy to Defraud the United States had he not won the election for president in a bombshell January 6 report. In a scathing statement issued along with the report, Smith admonished Trump for what he described as excessive lies and deceit to upend the American enterprise. 'The throughline of all of Mr. Trump's criminal efforts was deceit - knowingly false claims of election fraud - and the evidence shows that Mr. Trump used these lies as a weapon to defeat a federal government function foundational to the United States' democratic process,' the report states. Trump quickly slammed the report in a Truth Social post. 'Deranged Jack Smith was unable to successfully prosecute the Political Opponent of his 'boss,' Crooked Joe Biden, so he ends up writing yet another 'Report' based on information that the Unselect Committee of Political Hacks and Thugs ILLEGALLY DESTROYED AND DELETED, because it showed how totally innocent I was, and how completely guilty Nancy Pelosi, and others, were,' the post read. The president-elect then followed it up with two more missives to his social media platform. 'To show you how desperate Deranged Jack Smith is, he released his Fake findings at 1:00 A.M. in the morning. Did he say that the Unselect Committee illegally destroyed and deleted all of the evidence.' He followed it up with his trademark: 'MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!' With the prosecution foreclosed thanks to Trump's election victory, the 137-page document was expected to be the final Justice Department chronicle of the probes. Smith, who resigned after completing two criminal investigations, wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland that he believed had Trump stood trial on the charges, he would have been convicted. 'The department's view that the Constitution prohibits the continued indictment and prosecution of a president is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the government's proof or the merits of the prosecution, which the office stands fully behind,' Smith wrote. 'Indeed, but for Mr. Trump's election and imminent return to the presidency, the office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial,' he added. Trump called Smith 'a lamebrain prosecutor who was unable to get his case tried before the Election, which I won in a landslide. THE VOTERS HAVE SPOKEN!!!' Smith wrote the report, which was transmitted to Congress early Tuesday after a judge refused to block its release. It describes prosecutors' charging decisions in the case that resulted in Trump being indicted for taking a trove of national security documents to Mar-a-Lago. They also include the decision to charge Trump with heading a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election. The document includes, for the first time, a detailed assessment from Smith about his investigation, as well as a defense by Smith against criticism by Trump and his allies that the investigation was politicized. Though Smith sought to salvage the indictment, the team dismissed it entirely in November because of longstanding Justice Department policy that says sitting presidents cannot face federal prosecution. 'While we were not able to bring the cases we charged to trial, I believe the fact that our team stood up for the rule of law matters,' Smith continued. 'I believe the example our team set for others to fight for justice without regard for the personal costs matters.' Another 'significant challenge' was Trump's 'ability and willingness to use his influence and following on social media to target witnesses, courts, prosecutors,' which led prosecutors to seek a gag order to protect potential witnesses from harassment, Smith wrote. 'Mr. Trump's resort to intimidation and harassment during the investigation was not new, as demonstrated by his actions during the charged conspiracies,' Smith wrote. 'A fundamental component of Mr. Trump's conduct underlying the charges in the Election Case was his pattern of using social media - at the time, Twitter - to publicly attack and seek to influence state and federal officials, judges, and election workers who refused to support false claims that the election had been stolen or who otherwise resisted complicity in Mr. Trump's scheme,' he added. Smith also for the first time explained the thought process behind his team's prosecution decisions, writing that his office decided not to charge Trump with incitement in part because of free speech concerns, or with insurrection because he was the sitting president at the time and there was doubt about proceeding to trial with the offense - of which there was no record of having been prosecuted before. The special counsel brought a superseding indictment in the January 6th case that narrowed the case after the Supreme Court issued issued its summer decision giving presidents presidential immunity from prosecution for official acts while in office. Trump was charged with willful retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, in a case Cannon dismissed this summer that was on appeal when Trump won the November election. Trump's team previously argued that the report, under DOJ regulations, merely spews 'conspiracy theories,' and say it is unfair to release it, saying it violates his presumption of innocence. Trump, meanwhile, has continued to attack Smith publicly. The DOJ said the volume on the classified documents case would be provided to key members of Congress for both parties for private review in redacted form. 'This limited disclosure will further the public interest in keeping congressional leadership apprised of a significant matter within the Department while safeguarding defendant´s interests,' DOJ wrote. Once Trump took office January 20th, his own Justice Department got to make determinations on whether the report on the classified documents case ever gets released. Trump has repeatedly called the prosecutions against him 'witch hunts.' He appointed loyalist former Florida AG Pam Bondi to lead the agency.